Democrats

Run against Obama

Run against Obama

Mona Charen

When a Republican has been in the presidency for eight years, as George W. Bush was, Democrats run against the Republicans. When a Democrat has been in office for eight years, as Barack Obama will soon have been, Republicans run against Republicans.

This is a year in which the multiple failures of the Obama years should be irresistible for Republican presidential candidates. Democrats, correspondingly, should be awkwardly sidestepping and tightrope walking to avoid a too-close association. Instead, partly due to the eccentric obsessions of Donald Trump, we've seen Republicans reprising debates about the wisdom of the Iraq War while ignoring the greatest foreign policy debacles of the Obama years. If the Iraq War was a mistake of over-engagement (and there is a good case that it wasn't), Syria illustrates the perils of under-engagement — hundreds of thousands killed, a region destabilized, the metastasis of ISIS and the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Amendment restricting eminent domain takings advances at ConCon
Massachusetts

Amendment restricting eminent domain takings advances at ConCon

State House News Service

STATE HOUSE — Land takings that would serve to benefit only private development would be restricted in Massachusetts under a proposed change to the state constitution advanced Wednesday with no debate.

North Reading Republican Minority Leader Brad Jones said the proposal is a response to the 2005 Kelo v. New London decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Heritage Foundation sums up the 5-4 ruling as permitting the Connecticut city to take property from homeowners and transfer it to a private owner as part of an economic development plan, classifying the case as an example of judicial activism.

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